On Sun, 05 Dec 2010 23:07:14 -0500, tiredofspam nospam.nospam.com
wrote:

I'm actually doing a night table for my wife and it has similar grain
and pith.. My problem has been planing by hand. It's been tough the
grain has not been very friendly to work on. I want the chatoyance, so I
don't want to sand it. Did you sand or plane?

Drum sander, then random orbit sander. Never went near the planer
with that stuff.

-Kevin